Ask a police officer to tell a lawyer joke and certainly you’ll be met with something like the following:
Q: What do you call a person who assists a criminal before the criminal is caught?
A: An accomplice.
Q: What do you call a person who assists a criminal after the criminal is caught?
A: A defense attorney.
During my law enforcement career, I recall an officer who, when court was scheduled, would tug on his duty belt to pull his pants up and exclaim, “Well, let’s get to the courthouse and give those guilty bastards a fair trial!” Ironically, police and attorneys don’t only stereotype their “opponents.” Often, by being what they consider a model officer or lawyer, the jokes become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There has been a long standing rivalry between police and defense attorneys over how everything, from arrests to sentencing are handled. Both sides are supposed to be working together towards a common societal goal but often the two groups are at odds. In the past several years, I’ve had the good fortune to become an investigator for some of the finest criminal defense attorneys in the Carolinas and after being on both sides of the fence, I believe much of the discord comes from misunderstanding about the job each side has to do.
Police officers often only have seconds, if not less, to make decisions that can determine life or death for themselves or others. Lawyers, on the other hand, have weeks, months or sometimes even years to go over the same scenario in the comfort of their offices to determine if the police made the right decision to use deadly force.
I’ll use the following scenario as an example to illustrate my point. Before you read it though, check your watch and time how long it takes to read.
It’s nighttime, thus dark, and a police officer pulls a vehicle over on the side of a lonely road. The officer approaches the vehicle and asks the driver to put his hands where he can see them. The driver does not comply, and in fact, begins reaching between the seats. The man pulls a dark object from between the seats and begins to turn toward the officer with the object. What should the officer do?
I am estimating it takes an average of 15 seconds to read the scenario. Now go back and read it again, this time stopping after 2 seconds. That is often how long the officer has to make a life or death decision on the side of the road. These scenarios play out much faster than they read. When the driver fails to comply with the officer’s instructions, the thought going through the officer’s mind is, “Gun / no gun… gun / no gun.” When the man reaches between the seats, again, the officer is thinking, “Gun / no gun… gun / no gun.” Having to make a split second decision about who may end up dead on the side of the road is part of the job for police officers. Erring on the side of caution is the neighborly thing to do, but giving a person acting suspiciously the benefit of the doubt has resulted in the deaths of many police officers.
The judicial system, on the other hand, may take months to pore over those few seconds to determine if the officer made the right decision to use deadly force.
I have learned that not every defense attorney sets out to trip up or discredit an officer on the stand but any attorney working to discredit the actions of a police officer should at least ride along with an officer for a while to see law enforcement in action. Dealing with someone on the side of the road is much different than dealing with them when they are handcuffed and in a locked room. This firsthand experience would help anyone to realize just how quickly decisions have to be made, on the spot, with no law books to consult first. Police should also have to work alongside a defense attorney to observe the law working in slow motion, where the consequences of recklessly putting citizens into the criminal justice system can be realized.
My only major complaint with the system is that when police make a minor mistake, the case can be thrown out. Perhaps the answer is to punish, fine or censure the officer but it shouldn’t be to punish society by letting a small mistake allow an “otherwise guilty person” to go free. However, who will be the one to determine what a “minor” mistake would be? To a good lawyer, every minor mistake is a major mistake and truth be told, the lawyer who thinks that way would be the lawyer I’d hire should I ever find myself in trouble.
